LA MESA – Trustees of the La Mesa-Spring Valley School District met in a special session on Labor Day and voted to prohibit their schools from showing President Barack Obama's speech Tuesday to district students.

The address, which the president delivered at Wakefield High School in Washington, D.C., was televised at schools across the country.

District Superintendent Brian Marshall said he had planned to allow the district's 12,500 students at 21 schools to view President Obama's address until trustees directed otherwise. The district had sent home letters Friday saying teachers would show the speech and that parents could opt out if they didn't want their children to watch it.

That same day three of the La Mesa-Spring Valley school board members asked to schedule a special meeting to discuss whether to show the speech. At the Labor Day meeting, trustees voted 3-2 to prohibit district teachers from showing the speech Tuesday, despite testimony from all eight public speakers, who supported showing the president's speech, Marshall said.

Instead, the speech was recorded and will be shown to students starting as soon as Wednesday, giving time to review the speech and a chance to create “an educational experience” around the taped speech, Board President Penny Halgren said.

An earlier, failed motion called for the district to not show the speech at all.

Marshall said the district posted a notice of the district's Labor Day meeting on Friday. Normally agendas must be posted at least 72 hours in advance of a regular meeting, but in the case of special meetings, districts need only post agendas 24 hours in advance, said Peter Scheer, an attorney and executive director of the Marin County-based nonprofit California First Amendment Coalition.

School board members said they had received e-mails from parents who were opposed to the speech being shown in schools.

“There was a lot of emotion in those e-mails,” Halgren said. “The concern was they didn't know what he was going to say, there was some implication he was going to try to get the kids to do something and make himself the leader and usurp some power or wisdom from the parents. ... There was just plain fear. There was no information about what he was going to say.”

Later, after she read a draft of the speech, Halgren said her own concerns shifted to whether a 20-minute speech was appropriate to be shown to all elementary and middle school students, including special education and non-English-speaking students.

She said she'd like to see teachers design lesson plans that would use all or part of the speech to make it “a meaningful educational experience for the students.”

Duff said he voted to not show the speech Tuesday in part because he was concerned parents would keep their children home from school. Recording the speech would give officials time to review it for “political bias or any kind of bias (Obama) might try to direct,” he said.

Duff, a retired teacher, also said he was concerned about the amount of non-instruction time it would take students to walk back and forth from the classroom to the cafeteria or other viewing area to watch the speech.

But Turner, his board colleague, called the three who voted in favor of the decision “absolutely wrong.”

“Not only do I disagree with them personally, I don't see anything wrong with the speech,” Turner said. The president “was saying you can do it, keep going, keep trying, he was encouraging, motivating, I didn't see anything in that message about politics.”

Baber, too, said the president and his office deserve respect, no matter which political party he represents.

“I'm disappointed,” said Baber, who is an attorney. “There are some things that are non-political, and we strive to make education one of those things. The fact that the president wanted to speak to the kids, I viewed that as a reasonable request.”

In his speech, the president challenged the nation's students to take ownership of their education and to stick with it.

“Every single one of you has something that you're good at. Every single one of you has something to offer,” Obama said. “And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is.”

Obama was not the first president to give a back-to-school address aimed at millions of students in every grade. However, his speech sparked some protests from conservative organizations who believed Obama was trying to promote a political agenda.

That concern was caused in part by an accompanying lesson plan that encouraged students to compose essays to “help the president,” which the White House later revised. Critics accused the president of overstepping his authority.

Parent Anne Isaaks, who has two children attending Murdoch Elementary School, said she felt the board's decision was partisan and disrespectful to the president.

“I am disgusted,” Isaaks said. “This is a partisan hijacking of the board.”

Marshall, the superintendent, said as of 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, he had received 105 e-mails from members of the public – most who opposed the board's decision. He said the messages “express anger, outrage, and shock,” and that only a handful support the board's decision.

“By and large they are very dismayed that the board made that decision,” said Marshall, who is writing a response to each parent. “There have been maybe two or three that were supportive.”

Marshall said he expects teachers to review the president's address and work with principals to decide how to present the material in their classrooms.

“Being that the address is inspirational and highlights the need for working hard and being responsible for your education, I would expect that many would show it in their classrooms,” he said.